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Thursday, August 16, 2012

In celebration of my sewing room *finally* coming together the way I want it (nope - -still not done . . . but getting closer every day!), I decided it was time to tackle another project on my Summer Sewing To-Do List. Say hello to my new serger cover:

Not having a proper pattern the way I did for my sewing machine, I set out the other day to find some bit of inspiration and guidance on how best to tackle a cover for the serger. My original plan was to recreate the Bloom Sewing Machine Cover pattern on a smaller scale so that the two covers would "go". BUT after looking at the dimensions of my serger and how much linen I had leftover from my previous project, I decided to just use what I had and make up my own inspired-by-but-different-than-Bloom serger cover pattern.

Ish.

I did get some good tips and a nice starting point for tackling the unique shape of a serger from Created by CJ who was kindly enough to share a very good tutorial on how to cover a Bernina 1300MDC:

I did not follow her instructions exactly . . . I don't have the same kind of serger as she does (and I was going for a different look), so some modification was in order. I did, however, find the bones of the construction process helpful so a big kiss to CJ and her trailblazing tute. (For those of you who might want to try this project, I have a Brother 1034D - - they seem fairly popular for the somewhat budget-wise sergers out there.)

The first thing I set out to do was to create a pattern for the side pieces . . . I wanted that serger shape rather than just a piece of fabric flopped over the top. I took my odd piece of linen fabric and managed to squeeze 2 pieces out of it for the side pieces. Here are the dimensions I used (clearly this is not to scale):

Next up, I wanted to capture the same feel of the sewing machine cover so I changed up the "stitch" to "serge" (not too hard . . . all of the letters in stitch can be either traced or easily modified to come up with the letters in serge - - I used a window to trace and keep the size of the font the same as it was on the other cover). I only had a few odd sizes of linen left so I took the biggest one I had and cut it down just a bit so it would be the width I needed for the front of the cover. This piece ended up being 7"x14".

Next up, I struggled over which print from my precious Pop Garden stash to use for the rest of the cover. Seriously . . . this part probably took the longest! In the end I went with Paisley in Ivory. :) It was hard to finally cut into it, but I'm glad I did! I used a fat quarter piece (I told you it's precious . . . there are only a few pieces from this collection that I have 1/2 yards of . . . the rest are fat quarter chunks!) so I kept the long side as long as it was and cut the short side down to match the embroidery panel width-wise. At this point I laid it over my serger to see if it was going to be long enough once everything was all hemmed up. It wasn't. :P

So I added a little squinch from the Bijoux line - - Swirly Buds in Yellow. In case you forgot, I added a squinch of that print to the back of my sewing machine cover as well:

From there I sewed the 3 pieces together and embroidered and embellished the linen piece with some measuring twill tape and some crochet trim that I had left over from the sewing machine cover project. I raked through the button drawer to see if I could come up with some buttons that might work somewhere on this (nod to the Bloom pattern), but in the end I thought it was just too much so I left them out.

From this point on, the construction is pretty similar to the tutorial from CJ. The only notable difference is that I added some piping to the edges in homage to the Bloom cover.

I didn't end up adding a lining because I used fusible fleece and some interfacing to give the whole thing more structure and the inside doesn't look too bad. I just finished the bottom by giving it a little hem.

Well . . . that's that. I really hope someone stumbles on this someday and finds it helpful. It took some digging to find a serger cover pattern that wasn't too fussy (I don't need pockets or a handle), but wasn't too simple either (a la a piece of fabric draped over the top and tied on the sides). To be honest, if Bloom had published a serger pattern, I would have purchased it! In the end, though, I'm glad I puzzled through it this way because now I've got a pair of covers that give me a grin whenever I enter my sewing room. :)

On a side note: I'm linking this post up with Kelly's My Precious QAL (which does not have to be quilt-y as such, but does need to be a project which uses up some fabric from the "too precious to ever cut into" pile).

Thank you so much for this inspiration. I have been looking for something like this so I could make a cover for my overlocker. You have given me the confidence to just go for it. Making it to fit my Janome Harmony and adapt it to my needs.